Marist Brothers' Schools, 1911-1961 : Newtown and Thorndon

This jubilee booklet was published in 1961 to mark the 50th anniversaries of what were then Wellington's two main primary & intermediate Catholic boy's schools; Marist Brothers' Newtown located between Tasman Street and King Street, and Marist Brothers' Thorndon in Hawkestone Street. These operated as 'prep' schools for St Patrick's College which at the time was located at the top of Tory Street in Te Aro. Within a decade of this commemorative booklet being published, the landscape of Catholic boys' education began to radically change. In 1970 Marist Brothers' Thorndon closed and was relocated to Wilton after the original school was compulsorily acquired and demolished for the construction of the Wellington Urban Motorway. In the 1980s it became a co-educational school and was renamed Cardinal McKeefry School in honour of Peter McKeefry (1899 - 1973), Archbishop of Wellington from 1954 and the first New Zealand Cardinal to be appointed by the Pope in 1969.

Marist Brothers Newtown operated until 1984 when it closed and was amalgamated into St Anne's School, also located in Newtown. In 1980 St Patrick's College in Te Aro relocated to Kilbirnie, a move prompted by the proposed final stage of the Wellington Urban Motorway which was originally planned to run from the Terrace Tunnel to the Mt Victoria Tunnel (via the then-site of St Patrick's College) but which was never completed.